


by your side

by 3amscribbles



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Out of Character, but no smut, showering together, so out of character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amscribbles/pseuds/3amscribbles
Summary: Robert used to have a layer. One. Singular. He was a carpet, with everything swept under it in disarray. Aaron was the first thing to come along in years that made him want to push past the fear of what he might find inside of himself – of all the things he’d suppressed and ignored – just to see if there was something worth saving in there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can't write anything that isn't like... soft and fluffy. Which is why I don't write smut for this fandom, it'd be a disaster. Too sappy. Point is, as the tags say; this is out of character for the both of them and doesn't go with the show at all. It probably doesn't even make sense.

Robert used to have a layer. One. Singular. He was a carpet, with everything swept under it in disarray. Aaron was the first thing to come along in years that made him want to push past the fear of what he might find inside of himself – of all the things he’d suppressed and ignored – just to see if there was something worth saving in there. Something worth putting on display for everyone to see when they got close. Someone other than Aaron, who seemed to be the only one to see right through his woven threads of arrogance and doubt from the very beginning.

It’s a slow process, to sort through thoughts and emotions and figure out where he begins and ends, but he’s doing it. Has tugged at loose ends and tied some of them too Aaron, because it turned out to be quite obvious how incomplete he was once he let himself think about it, and there are parts of him, now, that are right there on the surface, on the tip of his tongue and right at his fingertips that are displayed for Aaron to see. For Aaron to take what he wants from because Aaron has proven time and time again that he always gives something back in return that feels just as right within Robert, on the shelves of bone and tendons under that first, remaining layer of perfected arrogance.

He wishes, sometimes at night when Aaron’s turning in his sleep and he can marvel the fact that he’s there to see it, feel it, experience the world from such a close distance, that he could have figured it out sooner; how Aaron never tried to take anything from him that wasn’t there. His attention. His views. The heart in his chest that trembles with the mattress whenever Aaron turns with the time – turns _the_ time. The planet. The pieces of them into place.

He’s longing for that, now. Their bed and how they fit on it, because they didn’t last night. Left it abandoned in favour of irrationality and love rippling in sharp words and blunt fists that tore them apart further than Robert ever wants them to be again. He’s been spinning the ring around his finger ever since Aaron was escorted out of the pub. Has taken the ring from the coffee table, along with Aaron’s endearing habit from thin air, and shelved them in mind and on finger as he’s assured himself of Aaron’s presence; of the way nothing is over – _ever_ over – between them.

Aaron’s got water running over his hands. He’s moved to the sink in the bathroom, but the frantic rubbing of wounded knuckles is the same as it was last night, and Robert thinks of the pieces of Aaron that he’s got shelved inside of himself, now, and wonders if that means that Aaron can feel the way he’s aching with the realization that the wounds are looking worse tonight.

He’s leant himself in the doorway. Has arms crossed over his chest and hands fisted in his own sweater just to make sure that they don’t reach out and ruin the moment. He’s unsure of how to approach it; the silence and everything unspoken that lies within it. Unsure of where their limits are and of how much has changed over the single night that parted them to begin with. All he knows is what he remembers, and he remembers too much because they both do, and it echoes between them.

Aaron, in the forest. Aaron, in the cabin. Aaron, at the scrapyard. Aaron, in the lake. The tears in between, all on Aaron’s cheeks. The weight of injustice on sloping shoulders, kept safe by hoodies and welcoming skin because Aaron doesn’t know how to shake things off. Doesn’t always know how to beat things unless they’re troubling other people. Aaron, here, with wounds on his skin and in his mind that Robert doesn’t know how to mend, because he’s been the cause of too many of them, and he always seems to be more capable of adding than soothing.

The water flows on; angrier than that of the lake, yet ominous in the way it splashes off of Aaron’s hands. The stairs creak, too, with familiar steps of motherly concern. Robert knows them. Her. The presence he never thought would feel warm, but that has become something to depend on the more she’s let him in.

Chas has been through most of those memories, too, and some beyond that that Robert’s only heard about recently. She hasn’t liked him for long, but they’ve been working in tandem. Have worried together through forests and courtrooms, in hospitals and in this very home. It took him too long to realize this, too; how there’s a layer within him spared just for her. One of love and concern invested in the same, passionate man and the way they’ll barge through anything in order to protect him.

Their common ground is the hallway of the second floor, now, spanning out from his position in the bathroom doorway to hers right by the stairs. It’s manifested in a shared look of anxious relief, and when Robert nods in a try to communicate that he’s got it – _him, her boy –_ she simply nods back gratitude and understanding and heads onwards to her room.

Aaron’s scrubbing at his wrists, now, at the insides of them as though the nets of veins there are spelling out just what he did last night, taunting him in soft blues. The sleeves of his sweater are getting wet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Doesn’t even seem to realize, so focused on the task of brushing off guilt that sits well beneath skin and muscle.

Robert pushes himself forward, leaving the press of the doorway against his spine in favour of pressing his fingers to the tap, turning it off. It takes a moment for Aaron to react; for shoulders to tense up even more over that sink, and for his jaw to work around the angry grit of his teeth.

He lets Robert’s hand settle over his own, though. Allows the gentle, gentle brush of a thumb over his knuckles and remains entirely still under the attention, because he doesn’t fold under pain. Doesn’t hiss under the relief and burn of Robert touching him, touching the evidence of his downwards spiral.

“Get your clothes off,” Robert tells him, quiet so that he won’t disturb their breaths. “Get in the shower.”

Aaron looks at him as though he’s off his head. Is all eyebrows and pursed lips and everything Robert loves – everything that shines brightly within him. Flecks of gold among the work in progress of undiscovered emotions.

He doesn’t explain anything, but he closes the door. Locks it. Peels his own sweater off and tries in vain to do his own eyebrow-number as he raises them in a challenge. Any other day he’d be grinning, too, but his body’s too tired. It’s aching with desperation – with longing for Aaron’s body close to his again, smoothing over any cracks he was intent on exploring yesterday.

The water takes its time getting warm, but he’s patient in a way he’s never been before. Sure of his place unlike any place he’s ever visited before. There are layers of towels on the rack, of clothes on the floor, of him inside of his body, and he knows that he’s allowed to flaunt them, here. That Aaron welcomes it, because he’s just as complex of a boy, himself, and all Robert wants to do is hold him.

He gets to, eventually. Steps in under the spray of water and gives Aaron time to think things through while he closes his eyes and breathes. There’s a gentle huff, barely cutting in over the splashing sounds, then the faint outline of Aaron’s body through the shower curtain, and a slide of it to the side as Aaron steps inside.

Then he’s reeling Aaron in, sliding wet arms around dry shoulders and pressing his nose against Aaron’s temple just to drag it over Aaron’s ear and through his hair, breathing in. Adjusting as they find their place again, together, with Aaron slowly unwinding and settling into his home, into the realization that he belongs here, too.

“I love you,” he reminds Aaron.

Aaron’s entire body hitches – freezes for a moment so brief that only Robert would be able to grasp the amount of thoughts exploding in his mind before a single one’s pressed out against Robert’s shoulder.

“I know. I _know_ you do. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

Robert has layers to pick out and expose. A part, among many of himself, that not only realizes his mistakes these days but that tries to make better of them in the future – turn them right. So he says, “I do. I made you think that I didn’t love you enough for two years, so I do. I need to. I _love_ you.”

And Aaron says, as though they’ve been doing it for years, “I love you, too.”

Then he smiles against Robert’s shoulder, soft and real in heat and sensation, and lets Robert scrub gently with loving fingers along every curve of his body.


End file.
